THIS JUST IN

A cover story on America's "new" drug crisis fills this week's edition of
Newsweek. New, perhaps in New York. But the meth crisis is a well-worn
Quad-City story.

Newsweek's piece touches all the points Quad-City readers have seen over
the 10 years local cops have been confronting this "new" epidemic head on.
Exploding labs. Emaciated victims. Shattered lives.

The cover story comes the same week Gov. Tom Vilsack proclaimed a measure
of victory in the war on meth. The number of labs discovered by police
plummeted, down 75 percent for the same period in 2004.

It could be that Iowa meth makers are getting sneakier. Vilsack attributed
it to aggressive enforcement and Iowa's toughest-in-the-nation crackdown on
cold pills, which contain an essential ingredient for meth making.

Old news: Meth scourge rages in the U.S.

New news: Iowa leads the nation in meth eradication.

We hope another decade doesn't slip by before Newsweek catches up with that
story.